_The Trail of Death_
"There's sure some sort of hoodoo on these Antarctic expeditions,
Wilson," said the city editor of _The Daily Record_ to the star rewrite
man. He glanced through the hastily typed report that had come through
on the wireless set erected on the thirty-sixth story of the Record
Building. "Tommy Travers gone, eh? And James Dodd, too! There'll be woe
and wailing along the Great White Way to-night when this news gets out.
They say that half the chorus girls in town considered themselves
engaged to Tommy. Nice fellow, too! Always did like him!"
"Queer, that curtain of fog that seems to lie on the actual site of the
south pole," he continued, glancing over the report again. "So Storm
thinks that Tommy crashed in it, and that it's a million to one against
their ever finding his remains. What's this about beetles? Shells of
enormous prehistoric beetles found by Tommy and Dodd! That'll make good
copy, Wilson. Let's play that up. Hand it to Jones, and tell him to
scare up a catching headline or two."
* * * * *
He beckoned to the boy who was hurrying toward his desk, a flimsy in his
hand, glanced through it, and tossed it toward Wilson.
"What do they think this is, April Fool's Day?" he asked. "I'm surprised
that the International Press should fall for such stuff as that!"
"Why, to-morrow is the first of April!" exclaimed Wilson, tossing back
the cable dispatch with a contemptuous laugh.
"Well, it won't do the I. P. much good to play those tricks on their
subscribers," said the city editor testily. "I'm surprised, to say the
least. I guess their Adelaide correspondent has gone off his head or
something. Using poor Travers's name, too! Of course that fellow didn't
know he was dead, but still...."
That was how _The Daily Record_ missed being the first to give out
certain information that was to stagger the world. The dispatch, which
had evidently outrun an earlier one, was as follows:
ADELAIDE, South Australia, March 31.--Further telegraphic
communications arriving almost continuously from Settler's
Station, signed by Thomas Travers, member of Travers Antarctic
Expedition, who claims to have penetrated earth's interior at
south pole and to have come out near Victoria Desert. Travers
states that swarm of prehistoric beetles, estimated at two
trillion, and as large as men, with shells impenetrable by rifle
bullets, now besieging Settler's Station, where he and Dodd and
Haidia, woman of subterranean race whom they brought away, are
shut up in telegraph office. Bram, former member of Greystoke
Expedition, said to be in charge of swarm, with intention of
obliterating human race. Every living thing at Settler's Station
destroyed, and swarm moving south.
It was a small-town paper a hundred miles from New York that took a
chance on publishing this report from the International Press, in spite
of frantic efforts on the parts of the head office to recall it after it
had been transmitted. This paper published the account as an April
Fool's Day joke, though later it took to itself the credit for having
believed it. But by the time April Fool's Day dawned all the world knew
that the account was, if anything, an under-estimate of the fearful
things that were happening "down under."
* * * * *
It was known now that the swarm of monsters had originated in the Great
Victoria Desert, one of the worst stretches of desolation in the world,
situated in the south-east corner of Western Australia. Their numbers
were incalculable. Wimbush, the aviator, who was attempting to cross the
continent from east to west, reported afterward that he had flown for
four days, skirting the edge of the swarm, and that the whole of that
time they were moving in the same direction, a thick cloud that left a
trail of dense darkness on earth beneath them, like the path of an
eclipse. Wimbush escaped them only because he had a ceiling of twenty
thousand feet, to which apparently the beetles could not soar.
And this swarm was only about one-fourth of the whole number of the
monsters. This was the swarm that was moving westward, and subsequently
totally destroyed all living things in Kalgoorlie, Coolgardie, Perth,
and all the coastal cities of Western Australia.
Ships were found drifting in the Indian Ocean, totally destitute of
crews and passengers; not even their skeletons were found, and it was
estimated that the voracious monsters had carried them away bodily,
devoured them in the air, and dropped the remains into the water.
All the world knows now how the sea elephant herd on Kerguelen Island
was totally destroyed, and of the giant shells that were found lying
everywhere on the deserted beaches, in positions that showed the
monsters had in the end devoured one another.
Mauritius was the most westerly point reached by a fraction of the
swarm. A little over twenty thousand of the beetles reached that lovely
island, by count of the shells afterward, and all the world knows now of
the desperate and successful fight that the inhabitants waged against
them. Men and women, boys and girls, blacks and whites, finding that the
devils were invulnerable against rifle fire, sallied forth boldly with
knives and choppers, and laid down a life for a life.
* * * * *
On the second day after their appearance, the main swarm, a trillion and
a half strong, reached the line of the transcontinental railway, and
moved eastward into South Australia, traveling, it was estimated, at the
rate of two hundred miles an hour. By the next morning they were in
Adelaide, a city of nearly a quarter of a million people. By nightfall
every living thing in Adelaide and the suburbs had been eaten, except
for a few who succeeded in hiding in walled-up cellars, or in the
surrounding marshes.
That night the swarm was on the borders of New South Wales and Victoria,
and moving in two divisions toward Melbourne and Sydney.
The northern half, it was quickly seen, was flying "wild," with no
particular objective, moving in a solid cohort two hundred miles in
length, and devouring game, stock, and humans indiscriminately. It was
the southern division, numbering perhaps a trillion, that was under
command of Bram, and aimed at destroying Melbourne as Adelaide had been
destroyed.
Bram, with his eight beetle steeds, was by this time known and execrated
throughout the world. He was pictured as Anti-Christ, and the fulfilment
of the prophecies of the Rock of Revelations.
And all this while--or, rather, until the telegraph wires were
cut--broken, it was discovered later, by perching beetles--Thomas
Travers was sending out messages from his post at Settler's Station.
* * * * *
Soon it was known that prodigious creatures were following in the wake
of the devastating horde. Mantises, fifteen feet in height, winged
things like pterodactyls, longer than bombing airplanes, followed,
preying on the stragglers. But the main bodies never halted, and the
inroads that the destroyers made on their numbers were insignificant.
Before the swarm reached Adelaide the Commonwealth Government had taken
action. Troops had been called out, and all the available airplanes in
the country had been ordered to assemble at Broken Hill, New South
Wales, a strategic point commanding the approaches to Sydney and
Melbourne. Something like four hundred airplanes were assembled, with
several batteries of anti-aircraft guns that had been used in the Great
War. Every amateur aviator in Australia was on the spot, with machines
ranging from tiny Moths to Handley-Pages--anything that could fly.
Nocturnal though the beetles had been, they no longer feared the light
of the sun. In fact, it was ascertained later that they were blind. An
opacity had formed over the crystalline lens of the eye. Blind, they
were no less formidable than with their sight. They existed only to
devour, and their numbers made them irresistible, no matter which way
they turned.
As soon as the vanguard of the dark cloud was sighted from Broken Hill,
the airplanes went aloft. Four hundred planes, each armed with machine
guns, dashed into the serried hosts, drumming out volleys of lead. In a
long line, extending nearly to the limits of the beetle formation, thus
giving each aviator all the room he needed, the planes gave battle.
* * * * *
The first terror that fell upon the airmen was the discovery that, even
at close range, the machine gun bullets failed to penetrate the shells.
The force of the impact whirled the beetles around, drove them together
in bunches, sent them groping with weaving tentacles through the
air--but that was all. On the main body of the invaders no impression
was made whatever.
The second terror was the realization that the swarm, driven down here
and there from an altitude of several hundred feet, merely resumed their
progress on the ground, in a succession of gigantic leaps. Within a few
minutes, instead of presenting an inflexible barrier, the line of
airplanes was badly broken, each plane surrounded by swarms of the
monsters.
Then Bram was seen. And that was the third terror, the sight of the
famous beetle steeds, four pairs abreast, with Bram reclining like a
Roman emperor upon the surface of the shells. It is true, Bram had no
inclination to risk his own life in battle. At the first sight of the
aviators he dodged into the thick of the swarm, where no bullet could
reach him. Bram managed to transmit an order, and the beetles drew
together.
Some thought afterward that it was by thought transference he effected
this maneuver, for instantly the beetles, which had hitherto flown in
loose order, became a solid wall, a thousand feet in height, closing in
on the planes. The propellers struck them and snapped short, and as the
planes went weaving down, the hideous monsters leaped into the cockpits
and began their abominable meal.
* * * * *
Not a single plane came back. Planes and skeletons, and here and there a
shell of a dead beetle, itself completely devoured, were all that was
found afterward.
The gunners stayed at their posts till the last moment, firing round
after round of shell and shrapnel, with insignificant results. Their
skeletons were found not twenty paces from their guns--where the
Gunners' Monument now stands.
Half an hour after the flight had first been sighted the news was being
radioed to Sydney, Melbourne, and all other Australian cities, advising
instant flight to sea as the only chance of safety. That radio message
was cut short--and men listened and shuddered. After that came the
crowding aboard all craft in the harbors, the tragedies of the _Eustis_,
the _All Australia_, the _Sepphoris_, sunk at their moorings. The
innumerable sea tragedies. The horde of fugitives that landed in New
Zealand. The reign of terror when the mob got out of hand, the burning
of Melbourne, the sack of Sydney.
And south and eastward, like a resistless flood, the beetle swarm came
pouring. Well had Bram boasted that he would make the earth a desert!
* * * * *
A hundred miles of poisoned carcasses of sheep, extended outside
Sydney's suburbs, gave the first promise of success. Long mounds of
beetle shells testified to the results; moreover, the beetles that fed
on the carcasses of their fellows, were in turn poisoned and died. But
this was only a drop in the bucket. What counted was that the swift
advance was slowing down. As if exhausted by their efforts, or else
satiated with food, the beetles were doing what the soldiers did.
They were digging in!
Twenty-four miles from Sydney, eighteen outside Melbourne, the advance
was stayed.
Volunteers who went out from those cities reported that the beetles
seemed to be resting in long trenches that they had excavated, so that
only their shells appeared above ground. Trees were covered with
clinging beetles, every wall, every house was invisible beneath the
beetle armor.
Australia had a respite. Perhaps only for a night or day, but still
time to draw breath, time to consider, time for the shiploads of
fugitives to get farther from the continent that had become a shambles.
And then the cry went up, not only from Australia, but from all the
world, "Get Travers!"